He bent down with a match crooked in his right hand. She pulled back, waving him off.

“It’s an electronic cigarette,” she said by way of explanation. “It stays lit all day.”

“Just like me,” he said, downing a gin.

She smiled, but she didn’t laugh. It wasn’t the sort of joke you laughed at, exactly. Funny, but a little too on-the-nose.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “Just have to powder my little girl’s room while I freshen up.”

“Sure thing, baby.” He took his hat off.

“Incidentally,” she purred, sticking her head back around the corner, “what’s the wi-fi password here, darling? I need to check something.”

Cats purred. Cats scratched, too.

“That network is locked,” he said.

“That’s not the only thing that’s locked around here,” she said, and disappeared.

The doorbell rang. Christ. Had she been sleeping?

“Who is it?” she said in her regular voice, then cursed herself inwardly. “Who’s there?” she called out in her softest, most dangerous voice, the one that mixed poison and honey in her throat.

“It’s me, baby. Open up.”

“Just a minute,” she said. Had she shaved her legs? You couldn’t ask a man to commit a murder for you with stubble on your legs. Men only killed for smooth women; they’d drilled that into her on Day One at Dame Academy. One thing was for sure: this wasn’t going to be repeat of Shanghai, when that quick-talking gunsel had slipped through her fingers just because no one had been willing to tell her she had lipstick on her teeth when she tried to flash a heavy-lidded, catlike smile at the mark.

Dame Academy hadn’t even wanted to take her at first. “Her legs are too short,” the Headmistress had said dismissively, before lighting a series of cigarettes with the heel of her shoe and tossing her Veronica Lake curls into a silver basin. “Try the secretarial pool.”

“But they go all the way to the top,” she’d said, crossing her legs so her hemline slid just above the knee, revealing four flasks, a pearl-handled revolver, and a couple of knives with different names carved into the handle.

Headmistress had smiled at that. “So, there’s some cat underneath that mouse after all.”

“Come in,” she said. “I’m very helpless.” She crossed her legs. Fuck. She still hadn’t shaved. Headmistress would have pulled off her manicure if she could see her now. Sleep with your makeup on, girls. You never know who’ll come breaking and entering. She dove out the window. Nothing to do for it but leave town and start a new life, with new legs, somewhere else.

“I follow my own code,” he said.

She sipped her drink. “I follow a lot of things.”

He looked puzzled. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. That sounded more suggestive in my head. I just…we’ve been bantering for hours. I’m sorry. I’m so tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

He still looked puzzled.

“I’m trying to suggest that I’m sexually available,” she said. “But in a vague, plausibly deniable sort of way.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

She put down her drink. Enough was enough. She’d just murder her sister herself.

Did you attend that seminar on Typewriter Mishaps? I still use the ol' 'oh the ribbon was twisted this whole time? oh dear, better start over now' trick. Don't mess with the classics, am I right?

FreeRangeMenses

I was there too! My main takeaway was "pretend your ribbon is cashed and then linger outside smoking a cigarette on your way back from the office supply room."

Ialdagorth

I ALMOST went into Frowning but decided I felt more of a pull towards Frumpy Sweater Deployment and Exaggerated Slapstick Eavesdropping.

ThatOtherWench

It seems we've gotten close enough to Mallory having a pitch-perfect send-up of enough gender-based tropes that we should probably start a wiki of them. What do you think – independent wikia or just adding links into the definitions paragraphs at tv-tropes? Their pages like "acceptable feminine goals and traits" already function as kinda-perfect descriptions of the cultural/propoganda wing of the patriarchy.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Accept…

She took off her large sunglasses, revealing Bette Davis eyes staring at him, imploring him to kill.

"Oh, sorry," she said, reaching up and pulling Davis' eyeballs off her eyelids. "I kept these babies as a prize when Bette Davis and I fought in the Dame Coliseum."

She looked at him with her real eyes, took a drag from her cigarette that he didn't even remember lighting, and said, "But for her, it's now more like Dame Doesn't-See-Em-Anymore."

literaltrousersnake

she'd just have to murder her sister herself

I want something clever to go here but there's nothing, I am done.

BlotsAndCreases

Can there be an honorary status in Dame Academy, just for the pearl-handled revolver?

perianwen

This is grand.

Un/relatedly, I would like to own that hooded silky robe (?) from the first picture plzkthx.

grumblyqueer

Seeing as "gunsel" is ancient slang for a catamite/bottom/twink, I don't think it was the lipstick that lost her the mark. (Even in The Maltese Falcon. Why else would Lorre be so fond of that walking stick?)

I read this: "She’d just murder her sister herself" and then thought of the first line of Mrs. Dalloway and then thought how much more fun Woolf's novels would be if they were all noir murder mysteries.

"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs. Ramsay, as she wiped blood from the knife.

I woulda loved Mrs. Dalloway a lot more if she'd been out a-murderin', that's for sure.

larsgarvey

This is a fantastic idea. I can guarantee there is a market for people who enjoy both Virginia Woolf and noir books.

I mean, it may just be me, but I promise to buy at least ten copies of each of your books. You know, Christmas presents and the like.

littlehuntingcreek

Teach me to be bad, Dame Academy. I need to take Remedial Bitchiness, Beginning Femme Fatale, and Kissing to Kill, Overview and Strategies

Unreadaethel

Don't forget Smolder Like an Ice Queen: The Seductive Art of Nonchalance. Early lessons include How Fast Is Too Fast (When He's Lighting Your Cigarette); the final exam will consist of staring moodily out the rain-streaked window, while casting a come-hither glance with your shoulders. Extra credit will be given to any student who can communicate, with one perfectly-arched eyebrow, disdain, longing, and a tragic vulnerability hidden beneath a veneer of sophisticated ennui and enticing sexuality.

Don't neglect to visit the co-op when you visit Dame Academy. This summer they're having a giant sale on garters, and the salesclerks (jaunty and cheerful, as befits all graduates of Tertiary Character Training College) can give you expert advice on which are best for guns, knives, vials of mysterious poisons, or fishnets.

celery

Never in my life have I imagined I would identify so strongly with femme fatales.